Kukla's Korner Hockey

Category: NHLPA

I touched base with (Ryan) Miller a few days ago, and he said part of what’s so difficult about these negotiations is an immense distrust of the owners and their motives in this fight.

It’s still hard for many players to look past what happened during the last lockout, when a win for the league resulted in a large share of those new revenues going to the wealthy teams.

“I think the anger and frustration comes from knowing what the owners are capable of under the guidance of Gary Bettman,” Miller said in an e-mail. “They are willing to let a season burn as shown in 2004-05, and it is a path that they are comfortable taking as their choice form of negotiating.

“This is the third time and no matter how the NHL spins it, the same story is being told. They claim teams are struggling financially and player salary restriction is the only way to address the inevitable disasters. It is hard to trust the owners when it is the same story after years of documented growth and increasing revenue.”

... In the meantime, we are left to speculate on what, if anything, the league will do with back-diving contracts.

Some theories:
-- Could the new CBA recalculate back-diving contracts so that years left on a contract still count against the team’s salary cap even if said player retires?

-- Could all long-term contracts, back-diving or not, be recalculated so that the five highest-salaried years count as the cap hit? Suddenly Hossa’s deal in Chicago would go from a $5.275 million cap hit to a $7.9 million cap hit under that scenario.

-- Could all existing contracts, long-term or not, be recalculated so that the actual yearly salary for that season counts against the cap and not the average salary? Imagine Minnesota’s reaction if Ryan Suter and Zach Parise would suddenly go from counting $7.53 million (average salary of their new deals) against the cap to $12 million against the cap this season and next?

“I think we’ll get most of the season in. Don and Gary are two smart guys, and there’s so much good in our game right now. From talent, the L.A. market winning the Stanley Cup, the Rangers are going to be strong, there’s so many young players, TV contracts – there’s a lot at stake here. I think it can be done.”

-Bobby Orr via Luke Fox of Sportsnet where you can read and watch what else Orr had to say.

Is there any sports executive who comes off as being more arrogant, snotty and unlikable in professional sports than NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman? You couldn’t find 3 NHL players today that wouldn’t pull a Hanson brothers attack on Mr. Bettman if they thought they could get away with it.

That said, it is aloof – and standard negotiating rhetoric by the way – for Donald Fehr (the NHLPA’s executive director and former long-time leader of baseball’s powerful players association) to suggest that the NFL and NBA lockouts from 2011 should not have any influence upon the direction of the NHL’s current labor negotiations.

Here’s the simple reality of the matter:

- Perhaps what goes on in other sports shouldn’t matter from a financial standpoint, but it does matter from a practical standpoint if there is evidence that the current model is causing more teams than not to lose money. This data from Forbes suggests this could still very well be true in the NHL.

We're heading into Week 2 of the lockout, of this super stupidity, complete with cancelled exhibition games and a complete lack of negotiation. The biggest concern, however, may be that it's hard to see where or when the thaw is going to come.

With the National Hockey League wanting player costs to drop immediately and the NHL Players' Association proposing instead to slow salaries against revenue growth, we're at an impasse. And the overwhelming answer to a question about how the gap can be bridged?

"I don't know."

But the majority opinion from people on both sides of the argument is this: there's no incentive for anyone to back down now and when they are ready for serious conversations, they (initially, at least) will be kept private.

The biggest issue remains the percentage split. And after spending a lot more time than I ever wanted researching hockey-related revenue, you can see the landmines.

From here, it looks as if nothing’s going to change any time soon – and the stalemate could drag on so long that it costs both sides another full season. It would be wasteful, it would be unnecessary, but make no mistake about it. These are not rational people acting in a rational manner. It could easily happen again.

-Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail where you can read more on this.

The NHL and NHL Players’ Association are entering a key phase in their CBA impasse.

Judging from conversations I’ve had over the past 24 hours, the next seven-to-10 days are see as "crucial" by some to finding out whether there’s a meaningful negotiation between the sides and finally a bit of traction in talks, or whether there's a freezing out period similar to eight years ago when three months went by without any negotiations occurring.

Despite not officially bargaining with each other since last Wednesday when both sides delivered updated proposals, the league and NHLPA have kept nearly daily contact via their respective No. 2 men: Steve Fehr of the NHLPA and Bill Daly of the NHL.

In fact, the two were expected to touch base with each other Tuesday night to figure out what’s next in the process.

You have to believe bargaining will resume over the next week, and hopefully both sides return to the table willing to move off their positions in an attempt to find some middle ground.

The NHL’s problem is the widespread disparity in profits for its 30 teams. We estimated that 18 teams lost money during the 2010-11 season in our annual look at the business of hockey. Several other teams barely eked out a profit, but the league’s most flush teams made a killing. The Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens had an operating profit (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $171 million combined. The other 27 NHL teams lost a collective $44 million. If you add the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers to the fat cats ledger, profits hit $212 million with the remaining 25 teams posting a loss of $86 million....

The NHL is not in dire financial straits as it was in 2004 when a lockout caused the cancellation of an entire season. It does need the top teams to share more of the wealth if it wants to be healthier financially. The league currently shares about $150 million of its revenue and the league has proposed bumping that up to $190 million. The players association is looking for revenue sharing closer to $250 million. We know why the Maple Leafs, Rangers and Canadiens do not want that much revenue sharing. What about the other 27 teams?

If both these sides are as committed to playing hockey as they'd like us to think, why isn't anyone talking about binding arbitration? Let's bring in a mediator, let him look at the two sides' best offers, and find a middle ground.

Basically, the two sides are fighting over seven percent of the revenues. We believe, as do most folks, that if the split was moved to 50-50 the owners would say, "Let's play," and they could work out the other elements (contract term, age of unrestricted free agency, etc.) over time.

So, next time one of these yahoos declares "we're doing everything in our power to get the game back on the ice," ask them why they haven't used mediation?